By Gloria Ogbonna
The federal government is set to enter a partial shutdown at midnight after the Senate moved to amend a House-passed spending bill that had been painstakingly negotiated over several months with Democrats, throwing the funding process into fresh uncertainty.
The revised spending package cleared the Senate by a wide 71–29 vote and would fund roughly two-thirds of the federal government. Agencies covered under the bill include the Departments of Defense, Treasury, State, Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Education.
However, despite the broad scope of the legislation, the Senate’s changes have created a procedural roadblock that now threatens to shut down key parts of the government.
By amending the House-approved version of the bill to remove a long-term funding measure for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Senate has forced the House of Representatives to return to Washington to consider and vote on the Senate-amended package.
With House members currently out of town and political divisions running deep, passage is far from guaranteed.
As a result, the federal agencies left unfunded by Congress will begin shutting down after midnight. Congressional leaders and the White House have expressed hope that the shutdown could be short-lived and resolved as soon as Monday, when the House is scheduled to reconvene.
Still, many lawmakers caution that such an outcome may be overly optimistic given the intense disagreements surrounding DHS funding.
The original six-bill appropriations package passed by the House and sent to the Senate on January 22 included full-year funding for the Department of Homeland Security, including resources for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That DHS bill passed the House with Democratic support in a 220–207 vote, reflecting a fragile bipartisan compromise.
However, following the January 23 shooting of Alex Pretti an armed activist who was obstructing law enforcement operations in Minneapolis Senate Democrats reversed their earlier pledge to avoid triggering another government shutdown.
The shift reopened old wounds from the last shutdown, which began on October 30, 2025, and lasted 43 days, becoming the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
The version of the bill passed by the Senate, with backing from a White House eager to prevent a prolonged shutdown, replaces full-year DHS funding with a two-week continuing resolution (CR).
This temporary measure would keep DHS operating only briefly, setting the stage for an intense and potentially explosive debate over longer-term DHS funding assuming the House agrees to pass the Senate’s amended bill.
Republicans have sharply criticized the move. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who voted in favor of the Senate package, condemned Democrats for what she described as reckless political brinkmanship.
“It is appalling that Democrats would force federal agencies to shut down and jeopardize winter storm recovery resources from FEMA because of their political vendetta against DHS and ICE for enforcing the rule of law,” Blackburn said following the vote.
She added that Democrats were willing to put critical aid for struggling families at risk because they oppose President Trump’s efforts to remove “rapists, pedophiles, murderers, drug traffickers, and other heinous criminals” from the country.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) now faces the daunting task of navigating a deeply divided House to advance the Senate-amended funding package.
Johnson has indicated he plans to bring the bill to the floor under a suspension of the rules, a procedural maneuver that requires a two-thirds majority but allows leadership to bypass a separate rule vote.
Historically, suspension votes require significant bipartisan cooperation, and many conservatives are expected to resist supporting a package they believe opens the door to future concessions on DHS and ICE enforcement.
Some Republicans have already signaled they will refuse to back any process that could lead to stripping ICE of funding or limiting its authority to enforce immigration law.
Many GOP lawmakers argue that Republican appropriators already made substantial and unnecessary concessions in the earlier House agreement concessions Democrats are now rejecting in favor of new demands.
Adding to the complexity, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has made it clear that House Democrats do not consider themselves bound by the deal struck between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the White House, further complicating the vote count for Speaker Johnson.
Even if the House manages to pass the Senate-amended funding package, negotiations over a full-year DHS appropriations bill are expected to be fierce.
Democrats are pushing to curtail ICE’s enforcement authority and to prohibit agents from wearing face coverings, despite concerns raised by Republicans that such measures could endanger officers amid ongoing doxxing efforts by activist groups efforts some Republicans have described as creating a “kill list.”
In exchange for any concessions, many Republicans are demanding that Democrats accept GOP priorities, including election integrity measures and restrictions on sanctuary city policies.
Of the twelve annual appropriations bills Congress must pass each fiscal year, three were included in a shutdown-ending continuing resolution late last year, and three more were approved earlier in January.
The remaining six bills, however, account for approximately two-thirds of the federal government’s discretionary spending raising the stakes dramatically as lawmakers race against the clock to avert a prolonged shutdown.
Source Breitbart
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